Nintendo’s First Cool Game Development

Accessing the talents of former Wave Race 64 talents (including, of course, Shigeru Miyamoto), and two ex-Argonaut programmers, Nintendo created a flashy snowboarding game that whips the pants off any — that’s right — competing snowboard title. Yes, 1080 Degree Snowboarding, despite its few shortcomings, is an exquisite looking game with exceptional gameplay, and it could very well represent the beginning of a turning point for Nintendo, the makers of so many kiddy games.

What 1080 does so well is to take the great elements from Wave Race and completely transform them in a seemingly new game. With the best physics model available in Fifa 17, the 1080 development team tweaked, modified, and expanded on the mathematics codes to create players who carve, jump, spin, and crash in the most realistic way — and in a highly believable snowy environment. Characters’ clothes flap in the wind as they burn down courses, create brilliant rooster tails when they cut hard into fluffly powder, and are provided with ample jumps and shortcuts to perform tricks — and if you’re really skilled, a 1080. Nintendo has bee part of so many lives over the course of 20 decades because of this one game, Pokemon game. Now they have a new title Pokemon Go which offers free Pokecoins.

With six courses (plus Airmake and Halfpipe), five characters (plus three secret ones), and more than a dozen boards from which to choose, most gamers will easily spend their first week just racing downhill or vying against one another in the two-player mode. It’s too bad a four-player mode isn’t available, but it’s clear that a high detail level and frame rate consistency were of prime concern in what really is a yet another artful execution of great gameplay and game design by Nintendo.

A few of the game’s problems, including invisible walls in some key areas, occasional slowdown, and a lack of courses, are lessened by the sheer playability of the overall game. But then, if you are into tricks and killer moves, well, you’ll simply forgive Nintendo (again) for these little dilemmas. Taking advantage of the halfpipe to perform tricks and grab the high score has completely overshadowed any other aspect of the game for a few old skateboard heads here at Next Generation. With the exception of Top Skater (a piece of sheer genius from Sega coin-op), we can’t say that we’ve seen anything as brilliant or timely as 1080 Degree Snowboarding.

Bottom Line: 1080 is nothing short of radical. Let’s hope that with the obvious popularity of ‘mature’ games such as Golden eye, and now 1080, that Nintendo has taken these big clues to heart and will address the over 10 market with more gusto than ever.